pakeboi

R.I.P. Giant ToughRoad SLR has been discontinued for MY 2021 .

veganbikes

It is sort of almost a shame as it was the one bike from Giant that I disliked a little less. Luckily though plenty of other options from other brands so not a huge loss. With gravel and all-road bikes here to stay we will see plenty of way better options out there for a long time and plenty of older options that have been there for a long time before gravel bikes where a named class of bikes.

BikeTall

Bummer. The flat bar Giant ToughRoad was going to be my next bike. I really don’t understand this obsession with Drop Bars on gravel & adventure bikes! If I want drop bars, I’ll get a road bike. For any bike that I will be using for gravel & adventure touring, I want flat bars. They are more stable & maneuverable on rough terrain than drop bars, and if you add bar end grips more comfortable with just as many hand positions.

Tourist in MSN

You have your preferences, I have mine. We obviously disagree but I suspect neither of us can convince the other that they are wrong.

pakeboi

What's your current gravel / adventure bike and which flat bars ?

indyfabz

I’m not obsessed with drop bars. They just suit me better, even on unpaved roads.

skidder

If you want one go to your local Giant dealers and see if they still have any in the inventory pipeline, and in your size. Typically they will for the year after a model is discontinued.

pakeboi

... not in these tough times .

BikeTall

I’m not trying to convince anyone. I am just personally bummed. Flat bars are my personal preference, especially for adventure touring. More maneuverable & stable on rough terrain. I just throw some bar end grips on & i can give my wrists a rest. Funny, when I am in Europe, I find flat bars on touring bikes much more popular over there. Maybe drop bars are an American thing for touring. I dunno. It’s all good.

Tourist in MSN

I have noticed that continental Europe is more likely to have flat bars on the touring bikes, a mix for UK bikes, USA generally uses drop bars. Two of my touring bikes are from a UK company, the frames had a S and L sizing system for short top tube (drop bar) or long top tube (flat bar) along with different sizing for different effective seattube lengths, but they made bikes for customers all over the globe.

A friend of mine never used the drops, built up a touring bike seven years ago with bullhorn bars, those bars gave him a handlebar position very much like drop bars and brake hoods but without the drops, photo below.



But that was a short top tube bike that was designed for drop bars.

mstateglfr 

I really don't know why you view riding a bike on roads(paved and unpaved) for touring or adventure needs a different style bar.

My road bikes have drop bars because that style offers many hand positions and back angle positions.
My touring and gravel bikes have drop bars because that style offers many hand positions and back angle positions.

Roads don't change just because I have some gear for touring.

BikeTall

Hey if it works for you. I am not telling anyone what they use is wrong. I was just talking about my preference. I also find in my experience traveling to Europe, i see more flat bar touring bikes than drop. So i guess a lot of people share my preference(at least in Europe). But it’s all good. Whatever works for you. I like the upright seated position when touring long distances. And with bar end grips, i can change my hand positions just as much as on a drop bar bike.

Trakhak

This thread made me realize that, while I think of myself as primarily a drop-bar user, having ridden bikes with drops since the early 1960s, I take out my drop-bar bikes for rides maybe a half-dozen times a year at the most. The bulk of my (nearly daily) riding is on a fixed-gear bike with bullhorns and a clip-on aero bar or on a TT bike with one-piece aero bars.

And sometimes a hybrid with a flat bar and clip-on aero bars. Which I find a better combination than the use of a drop bar alone. To me, a flat bar feels much safer in Baltimore traffic than a drop bar, while a clip-on TT bar is more comfortable and more aerodynamic. Best of both, as they say.

Tourist in MSN

Regarding drop bars and off road riding, my heavy duty touring bike (I refer to it as my expedition bike) on White Rim Trail in Canyonlands in the photo below. One of the days had strong headwinds, I was happy I had the drops, I was faster than most that day. The frame was designed for either the solid fork that came with it or a 100mm suspension fork. Trip was fully supported by an outfitter that hauled our food, water and camping gear. Everybody else had full suspension bikes, and there were times I wished I had rear suspension too.

There were 10 of us, all from my community, most of us knew each other for several years before the trip. All owned road bikes and were experienced road riders, but some did not own mountain bikes. The ones that did not own mountain bikes rented. I do not have a suspension mountain bike, instead of renting I chose to try out my expedition bike to see how it worked, at that time the bike was only one year old and had not been on a trip yet.



It was quite chilly in the morning, we were shedding lots of layers of clothing during the day. Plus carrying food and water for the day. The other thing that surprised me was how everyone else wore a backpack for everything, including water. For some reason they were all convinced that you should shift the weight to your upper body. I chose to use a handlebar bag and a saddle bag and large water bottles on the frame. The bumps really played havoc with my handlebar bag support.

The outfitter referred to my handlebars as aero bars.

Same bike with the solid fork carrying panniers on a tour, still using drop bars, below:




We all have our preferences. I want to be able to use the drops in headwinds.

ADDENDUM ADDED HOURS LATER:

I should however clarify one key point. When I think of touring bikes and drop bars, I think of the top of the drop bars as being the same height as the top of saddle, plus or minus a half inch. Yes there are some current and former racers that want racing posture, but they are a small minority. And when I think of road bikes and drop bars, I think of the bikes that bike shops setup to have the handlebars several inches below the top of the saddle. My road bike was built that way, I had to put a 35 degree angle stem on it to raise the bars to a more reasonable level.

Thus, my reference to drop bars for touring is not a racing profile with the drop bars way down there.

djb

don't know where you a are or if you've been in bike stores, but here anyway where bicycling culture has always been popular, covid really caused a boom of buying and the stuff stores can get with the supply chain issues, goes lickity split.

And that's the truth Ruth

MarcusT

In regards to drop bars, of the hundreds of touring pics I've seen, maybe and that's a long maybe, 1% riders are on the drops.
Just sayin'

PDKL45

The US really seems to have a thing for drop bar touring/ trekking bikes and I have seen Germans getting all worked up about the French randonneur influence on the Americans leading to the horrors of drop bar touring bikes, which may or may not be accurate. A 26" or 700C LHT is a very different beast from a 650B randonneur, even if there are some superficial similarities, and the US drop bar preference seems to come more from people like Grant Petersen, with the Atlantis obviously influencing the LHT. True loaded US touring bikes also commonly have mid trail geometry and a preference for rear loading; you still see comments plaintively asking why OP doesn't have a rear rack if someone posts a pic of a fully front loaded tourer. French randonneur geometry has twitchy low trail forks that are commonly damped down with a chunky rando bag for baggage on the front of the bike.

Still, Giant is having a pandemic of a time in 2021 as well as everyone else, it seems. The Expressway folding bike has also been discontinued, which is a bit of a bummer. I was really keen on one of those. The ToughRoad SLR was already removed from the US market, though, wasn't it? I thought only the ToughRoad SLR GX dropbar adventure bike was available in the US market? Anyone got any other tips on discontinued Giant bikes?

djb

one really key factor is having a bike setup whee the dropbars are both a nice distance from the seat, and high enough up AND dropbars that are both shallow in reach as well as drop.
My dropbar tourer is like this and so I can ride in the drops quite comfortably, which can feel good for a nice back stretch but especially for really bad headwinds.
Yes, I admit it's not that often, but the setup really is useable in the drops and I really really appreciate it with strong headwinds.

PDKL45

Hey, pakeboi, where did you get the info? From a Giant dealer? Or from an email to Giant?

pakeboi

It's still available in the South Korea !
I may even buy one there when it's safe to travel there and if size M is available .
It's been discontinued it the USA , the flat bar version .
Not sure about drop bar .

pakeboi

Bikepacking . com article and video on flat vs. drop .
https://bikepacking.com/gear/drop-bars-vs-flat-bars/